We study optical excitations across the Mott gap in the multi-orbital Mott-Hubbard insulators RVO3. The multi-peak structure observed in the optical conductivity can be described consistently in terms of the different 3d^3 multiplets or upper Hubbard bands. The spectral weight is very sensitive to nearest-neighbor spin-spin and orbital-orbital correlations and thus shows a pronounced dependence on both temperature and polarization. Comparison with theoretical predictions based on either rigid orbital order or strong orbital fluctuations clearly rules out the latter. Both, the line shape and the temperature dependence give clear evidence for the importance of excitonic effects.
The antiferromagnetic transition is investigated in the rare-earth (R) tritelluride RTe3 family of charge density wave (CDW) compounds via specific heat, magnetization and resistivity measurements. Observation of the opening of a superzone gap in the
resistivity of DyTe3 indicates that additional nesting of the reconstructed Fermi surface in the CDW state plays an important role in determining the magnetic structure.
We report a thorough study of Y$_{0.7}$La$_{0.3}$VO$_3$ single crystals by measuring magnetic properties, specific heat, thermal conductivity, x-ray and neutron diffraction with the motivation of revealing the lattice response to the spin-orbital ent
anglement in textit{R}VO$_3$. Upon cooling from room temperature, the orbitally disordered paramagnetic state changes around T*$sim$220,K to spin-orbital entangled state which is then followed by a transition at T$_N$=116,K to C-type orbital ordered (OO) and G-type antiferromagnetic ordered (AF) ground state. In the temperature interval T$_N<T<T^*$, the VO$_{6/2}$ octahedra have two comparable in-plane V-O bonds which are longer than the out-of-plane V-O1 bond. This local structural distortion supports the spin-orbital entanglement of partially filled and degenerate yz/zx orbitals. However, this distortion is incompatible with the steric octahedral site distortion intrinsic to orthorhombic perovskites. Their competition induces a second order transition from the spin-orbital entangled state to C-OO/G-AF ground state where the long range OO suppresses the spin-orbital entanglement. Our analysis suggests that the spin-orbital entangled state and G-OO are comparable in energy and compete with each other. Rare earth site disorder favors the spin-orbital entanglement rather than a cooperative Jahn-Teller distortion. The results also indicate for LaVO$_3$ a C-OO/G-AF state in T$_t$,$leq$,T,$leq$T$_N$ and an orbital flipping transition at T$_t$.
We use high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and electronic structure calculations to study the electronic properties of rare-earth monoantimonides RSb (R = Y, Ce, Gd, Dy, Ho, Tm, Lu). The experimentally measured Fermi sur
face (FS) of RSb consists of at least two concentric hole pockets at the $Gamma$ point and two intersecting electron pockets at the $X$ point. These data agree relatively well with the electronic structure calculations. Detailed photon energy dependence measurements using both synchrotron and laser ARPES systems indicate that there is at least one Fermi surface sheet with strong three-dimensionality centered at the $Gamma$ point. Due to the lanthanide contraction, the unit cell of different rare-earth monoantimonides shrinks when changing rare-earth ion from CeSb to LuSb. This results in the differences in the chemical potentials in these compounds, which is demonstrated by both ARPES measurements and electronic structure calculations. Interestingly, in CeSb, the intersecting electron pockets at the $X$ point seem to be touching the valence bands, forming a four-fold degenerate Dirac-like feature. On the other hand, the remaining rare-earth monoantimonides show significant gaps between the upper and lower bands at the $X$ point. Furthermore, similar to the previously reported results of LaBi, a Dirac-like structure was observed at the $Gamma$ point in YSb, CeSb, and GdSb, compounds showing relatively high magnetoresistance. This Dirac-like structure may contribute to the unusually large magnetoresistance in these compounds.
We present a detailed ARPES investigation of the RTe3 family, which sets this system as an ideal textbook example for the formation of a nesting driven Charge Density Wave (CDW). This family indeed exhibits the full range of phenomena that can be ass
ociated to CDW instabilities, from the opening of large gaps on the best nested parts of Fermi Surface (FS) (up to 0.4eV), to the existence of residual metallic pockets. ARPES is the best suited technique to characterize these features, thanks to its unique ability to resolve the electronic structure in k-space. An additional advantage of RTe3 is that the band structure can be very accurately described by a simple 2D tight-binding (TB) model, which allows one to understand and easily reproduce many characteristics of the CDW. In this paper, we first establish the main features of the electronic structure, by comparing our ARPES measurements with Linear Muffin-Tin Orbital band calculations. We use this to define the validity and limits of the TB model. We then present a complete description of the CDW properties and, for the first time, of their strong evolution as a function of R. Using simple models, we are able to reproduce perfectly the evolution of gaps in k-space, the evolution of the CDW wave vector with R and the shape of the residual metallic pockets. Finally, we give an estimation of the CDW interaction parameters and find that the change in the electronic density of states n(Ef), due to lattice expansion when different R ions are inserted, has the correct order of magnitude to explain the evolution of the CDW properties.
We report the magnetic properties strongly varying with the rare-earth elements in the newly found ternary compounds $R$Al$_{0.9}$Si$_{1.1}$, which crystallize in the tetragonal $alpha$-ThSi$_2$-type structure. For $R$ = Ce the alloy has a weak ferro
magnetism below 11 K and for $R$ = Pr it orders ferromagnetically at 17 K, while for $R$ = Gd it is antiferromagnetic with $T_{rm N}$ = 30.5 K. In addition, we find no field effect on $T_{rm N}$ of $R$ = Gd because of the large internal mean field, but significant changes in the magnetic properties of $R$ = Ce and Pr.